The first elected trustees of the town were the slate of Denis Kearney's Workingman's Party, who were particularly favored in the working class area of the former Ocean View, now called "West Berkeley". A silent film of one of these early streetcars in Berkeley can be seen at the Library of Congress website: "A Trip To Berkeley, California".

Women eventually won the right to vote in many countries and own property and receive equal treatment by the law, and these changes had profound impacts on the relationships between men and women. In many societies, individuals could decide—on their own—whether they should marry, whom they should marry, and when they should marry.